Unearthed Words
This Month's
Unearthed Words
Unearthed Words
The Archives
All the words shared on The Daily Gardener podcast.
Frost’s Painted Garden: Helen Bayley Davis on Winter’s Vanishing Art
by Helen Bayley Davis Someone painted pictures on my Windowpane last night – Willow trees with trailing boughs And flowers, frosty white, And lovely crystal butterflies; But when the morning sun Touched them with its golden beams, They vanished one by one. As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden…
Chasing Seasons of Love: Ann Batten Cristall’s Garden of Enchantment
by Ann Batten Cristall, English poet and schoolteacher Through springtime walks, with flowers perfumed, I chased a wild, capricious, fair Where hyacinths and jonquils bloomed, Chanting gay sonnets through the air; Hid amid a briary dell Or ‘neath a Hawthorn-tree, Her sweet enchantments led me on And still deluded me. While summer’s ‘splendent glory smiles…
Pruning with Vision and Hope: David Mas Masumoto on the Art of Renewal
by David Mas Masumoto (“Mahs Mahs-ooh-moe-toe”), Peach & Grape Farmer and Author, Epitaph for a Peach, Pruning My thoughts turn to the work of pruning. Ideally, the first blasts of winter have left their mark and strip the trees of leaves. But I’ve seen antsy farmers prune while lots of leaves still hang in the…
A Wild Winter Garden Indoors: Susan Tyler Hitchcock on Foraging Through the Cold
by Susan Tyler Hitchcock Most weeds don’t make it through winter. They need warm rain and steady sun. Frozen soil inhibits root growth; snowfalls discourage sprouts. Even watercress, which usually positions itself in flowing water, gets hurt by a freeze. If you live in an area where the snow falls over several months, …
Geese, Peace, and the Farmstead: Rachel Peden’s Winter Meditation
by Rachel Peden Under the big Swamp Maple in the east lot, the gray geese and the white Pilgrim ganders gather silently. During winter nights, they sleep in the open face tool shed, and often in the night, they think of new expressions of scorn and at once utter them. (“We are the watchdogs, we…
George Washington’s Boxwood: A Winter Garden Memory with Jean Hersey
by Jean Hersey The garden is completely winterized except for the roses, which need more hay, and the four small box yet to be covered with burlap. We have a sentimental feeling for these box. Once many years ago, on a holiday with the children, we were driving to North Carolina. We stopped at Mount…
December is a Blizzard in Wyoming
by Hal Borland December is a blizzard in Wyoming and a gale on the lakes, and the Berkshires frosted like a plate of cupcakes. It is bare trees and evergreens. It is wrestling weed stems and a gleam of partridgeberry on the hillside, a cluster of checkerberries, and winter greens in the thin woodland. It…
Winter’s subtle wonders: Donald Culross Peattie on nature’s quiet beauty
by Donald Culross Peattie Nature in winter is like a great toy shop at night. The doors are locked, and only at the mysterious depths of the shop does some cold light burn. If we press our noses on the pane, we can just make out the forms of bigger objects. All the tenderer delights…
December’s brief wisdom: John Bannister Tabb on seasons and memory
by John Bannister Tabb I sat with chill December Beside the evening fire. “And what do you remember,” I ventured to inquire, “Of seasons long forsaken?” He answered in amaze, “My age you have mistaken; I’ve lived but thirty days.” As featured onThe Daily Gardener podcast: Words inspired by the garden are the…
Winter’s quiet rule: Edgar Albert Guest’s “Winter in the Garden”
by Edgar Albert Guest Gray skies above us, and the snow Blankets the frozen earth below. Where roses bloomed, the drifts lie deep. The hollyhocks are fast asleep. The cedars green are wearing white Like rich men’s wives on opera night. The elm tree strangely seems to throw A lean, gaunt shadow on the snow.…
The golden curse: Carolyn Kizer’s “The Ungrateful Garden” and King Midas’ roses
by Carolyn Kizer Midas watched the golden crust That formed over his steaming sores, Hugged his agues, loved his lust, But (cursed) the out-of-doors Where blazing motes of sun impaled The serried roses, metal-bright. “Those famous flowers,” Midas wailed, “Have scorched my retina with light.” This gift, he’d thought, would gild his joys, Silt up…
A floral elegy: John Milton’s garden tribute in Lycidas
by John Milton Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies, The tufted crow-toe, and pale gessamine, The white pink, and the pansy freaked with jet, The glowing violet, The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine, With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head, And every flower that sad embroidery wears: Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,…
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